The Secret's in the Telling
by sparklenvy
Summary: There is no coming back from this, Casey thought to herself as she played with the frayed edges of Derek’s sheet. Stupid life-changing moments. They are highly over-rated.


**Title**: The Secret's in the Telling - Part One  
**Pairing**: Derek/Casey  
**Word Count**: 4200+  
**Disclaimer**: I own nothing.  
**Authors Note**: Two years ago I started a fic called Under my Skin which I never finished. And for the past two years, on and off, I've been reworking the story in my mind till I've come as close to perfecting this thing as I can. I swear, it's like my child at this point. It shares a number of similarities to the original fic (especially this part) but it's also very different in tone and later events.

_Everyone knows I'm in over my head  
With eight seconds left in overtime she's on mind  
- Over My Head (Cable Car) - The Fray -_

__

There is no coming back from this, Casey thought to herself as she played with the frayed edges of Derek's sheet. _Stupid life-changing moments. They are highly over-rated._

"We should, you know, do _something_," Derek urged, pausing momentarily from his nervous pacing around the room.

"I'm trying to think," she replied, twisting the thread between her fingers and pulling till the fabric gave way. _We could lie, tell them it's not what they think…_

"Maybe they've left and we'll have, like, a silent agreement to never talk about this," Derek suggested, interrupting Casey's thought process again. Casey finally lifted her eyes to meet his, raising an eyebrow in disbelief at his suggestion. "Or not."

Derek fell, disheartened, onto the bed next to her and she felt his body pressing up against hers through the thin sheet. _Or we could tell the truth_, Casey considered turning her body to face him.

"Tell me you love me," she whispered, eyes fluttering shut as she heard footsteps coming from the other side of the door.

"Casey, come on," Derek replied, pressing his forehead against hers. She tensed, her eyes instantly opening as anger flashed behind them. "What?"

"God, Derek, do you not get what is happening here?" Casey snapped, quickly scrabbling out of bed while pointing dramatically at the door. "Our parents are out there, in your lounge, waiting for an answer to _this_. So we have two options. We can tell them this was a stupid, teenage indiscretion that will never happen again and will be a topic only brought up at inappropriate times, like family reunions or Christmas vacation. Or we tell them the whole complicated, fucked up story about how this happened and that we're together regardless of what they say."

"Casey," Derek sighed, perched on the edge of the bed.

"And excuse me for wanting to have all the facts before I make that kind of life-changing decision, Derek. Because I am sick and tired of hiding this from them and I won't go back to that. I love you but I need to know that you feel the same," Casey finished, eyes locking with his. _Just say it. That's all you need to do._

"No, Case, you're the one who doesn't get it." he responded, running a hand through his ruffled hair.

"What is that…," she started, her words interrupted by his mouth crashing against hers. His hands slid down to her hips and Casey's body began to react naturally. Her lips opening to his as her hands tangled themselves in his hair. Derek pulled away, smirking with his bruised lips.

"Derek!" she screamed, shoving him away as a scowl crossed her face.

"You shouldn't have to ask if I love you," he said, unfazed by her anger as he pulled her back into his arms despite her fading struggle. He pressed to her forehead before continuing, "After everything we've dealt with, how can you doubt that. I love you, Spacey. Even if it is against my better judgment."

"I didn't _doubt_ you," Casey insisted. _At least, not that much. _

"So that leaves just one question," Derek said, nodding towards the door to his dorm room's lounge. "Where exactly do we start with 'the whole complicated, fucked up story'?"

"I was thinking last summer, in Michigan," Casey responded, slipping her hand into his as she lead him towards the door.

"Michigan? If you think that was the start of us than you were a bit late to the game," Derek replied.

"It's the most coherent starting point I can think of," she protested, tightening her grip on his hand as she watched his other wrap around the doorknob.

"Michigan it is than. You ready for this?" he asked and Casey gave him a nod of reassurance. With that he opened the door and they walked out to the confused stares of their parents.

_it's not a love song  
- song beneath the song - maria taylor -_

The problem with this kind of story is it doesn't always go the way that you want it to. It doesn't hold the proper structure, the timeline is fuzzy at best and it never stays in order no matter how hard you try to force it. The peaks are before, and after, they should be and you're left feeling like you're still missing something even when it's over.

But it's a _love_ story. No one ever said those had to make sense.

The family's vacation to Mackinaw City, Michigan shortly after Casey and Derek's graduation was far from the beginning but, at the very least, it was the first significant moment.

It hadn't been the ideal way Casey had wanted to spend her first weekend of summer vacation but her mother and George had been quite instant on it. The end of her, and Derek's, high school career and their respective plans to attend the University of Toronto the following fall had sparked a need in their parents to cram in as much quality family time as possible into their remaining weeks.

They had loaded the luggage into their two cars (along with an assortment of snacks, magazines and mixed cds) and departed at the crack of dawn. Casey's mother and George had taken Edward, Lizzie and Marti in their vehicle, leaving Casey and Derek with 'the prince'. Another aspect of the trip that Casey hadn't found ideal either.

Derek had insisted on driving, unsurprisingly, so Casey ended up spending most of the way sleeping. This was the only real positive aspect of her current situation as far as she was concerned.

"How long have I been sleeping?' Casey questioned as she woke from her nap, stretching her arms above her heard to the best of her ability. _My back is not going to be forgiving about this._

"About an hour or two but it's okay. Your snoring kept me awake," Derek replied, throwing a smirk her way before turning his attention back to the road.

"Always the charmer," Casey yawned, before retrieving her bag of snacks from the backseat. "How long till we get there?"

"According to Dad, we should have been there about thirty minutes ago," he answered, reaching over to steal a handful of chips. "We took a wrong exit or something and ended up backtracking a bit."

"I told you I should have been put in charge of directions," Casey pointed out, guarding her chips from any future attempts by Derek.

"And I'm sure you won't let any of us forget it. Eat your chips and relax, princess. This is a vacation, we'll get there eventually," he replied and Casey settled back silently into her seat.

_At least we have 'the truce', I couldn't imagine this working last summer_, Casey silently acknowledged as she propped her bare feet up to rest on the dashboard. She watched Derek drumming quietly on the steering wheel in beat with the radio as she popped a few more chips into her mouth.

'The truce,' as she delicately called it, had originated sometime around the start of their final year of school. Casey had re-initiated her relationship with Sam and Derek's parade of girlfriend's had begun to slow to a pace that at least resembled what would pass as functional dating in the real world. As a result, the two had increasingly been forced to socialize together and, as George had described it, started to 'play nice' in order to appease their friends.

The fighting that had plagued them since the start of their step-sibling-hood had dwindled to the only rarest of occasion and the two almost seemed to be on friendly terms. _Almost_, Casey thought, _being the key word_. As much as she appreciated 'the truce' allowing her to expand her circle of friends it had never set well with her. So much of her relationship with Derek, for a lack of a better word, had revolved around their shared hostility that anything else left her with an unsettling feeling.

Pushing the thoughts out of her mind, Casey allowed her head to lull to the side and tried to enjoy the rest of the trip by staring at trees boarding the expressway.

"Finally," Derek cried, letting his head fall back onto his headrest as the bridge finally came into view. "I thought we'd never get out of this car."

"Weren't you just telling me not to complain? Like twenty minutes ago?" Casey asked, confused.

"Yeah, well, it's _annoying_ when you do it," he answered, turning onto the exit ramp. Casey crossed her arms and turned her attention back to the scene in front of her. _At least I'll be out of this car in a few minutes and alone time Derek will be over for the rest of the weekend…at least till the drive back._

She should have known better than to expect the best, especially when Derek was involved. In all likelihood, her harboring the idea of spending a vacation that allowed for only the most minimal contact with him had probably doomed her to _this_.

"What do you mean the hotel made a mistake with our rooms?" Casey demanded, eyes darting between her mother and George.

"Well, it wasn't really the _hotel_ who made the mistake," George corrected her, shifting his gaze to Nora. "I might have booked the rooms…incorrectly."

"You know, I volunteered to set up the accommodations," Casey pointed out, looking at her mother for support.

"We know," Edward, Lizzie and Derek replied in unison.

"Honey, it's really not that big of a deal. We still have two rooms…one just has a king size bed in it opposed to two queens," Nora tried to explain, letting out the breathe she had been holding.

"I guess that's solved easily enough. You and George can take that room with Marti. Lizzie, Edward, Derek and I can take the other," Casey reasoned, relaxing a bit. _I guess staying in the same room as Derek couldn't possibly be all that bad. It is a vacation, how much time will we spend in there anyways?_

"Note that simple," Derek corrected, motioning to Marti who was running around the family waving her princess wand. "I promised Smarti she would be in my room."

"Derek, I'm sure she doesn't even remember that," Casey pointed out. But before she had even finished the sentence she felt someone tugging at the hem of her shirt and had looked down to see Marti smiling up at her.

"I didn't forget!" Marti insisted, running over to Derek who immediately lifted her up into his arms.

"She was talking about it the entire way down, she had her heart set on it," Nora explained to Casey with an apologetic expression.

"Derek, Edwin and Marti with the king bed and mom, George, Lizzie and I with the two queens," Casey suggested. _And Derek is, once again, out of my room. This just might be looking up._

"I'm not sleeping in the same room as Edwin, his feet smell and he gets gassy on vacations," Derek insisted and Marti plugged her nose while making a face.

"I do not!" Edwin yelled, catching the attention of several other guests in the lobby.

"You've become accustomed to the smell," Derek continued. The bickering continued on for several minutes and Casey felt her head beginning to ache. Really, that was the only plausible reason she could think of to justify her following actions.

"Lizzie, Edwin, George and mom with the two queen bed. I'll take the king bed with Derek and Marti. Any complaints?" Casey snapped, causing the rest of their group to fall into silence. Derek slowly began to raise his hand before Casey shot him a look. "No complaints? Great!"

"Complaint. Big complaint right here!" Derek insisted, as she lifted her bag off the floor and grabbed the hotel room key out of George's hand.

"Casey, are you sure that's the best idea. You and Derek, well, you two don't exactly get along," George worried.

"We survived the drive here, didn't we. We'll can deal with two nights in a hotel room," Casey reassured, plastering on a fake smile and heading towards the hall on her right. _And if worse comes to worse, I could always just lock him out._

"Casey!" Nora yelled after her.

"I told you, it's settled!" Casey insisted, turning back to face them.

"Our rooms are down that hallway," she corrected, motioning to the opposite side of the building.

"I knew that," Casey declared, before storming past all of them. She could hear Derek's laughter echoing down the hall after her.

_what just happened? did you kiss me?  
cause that's a place we've never been until now  
and I don't know how it's gonna be after this  
do we pretend these feelings don't exist at all or do we fall?  
- temporary insanity - alexz johnson -_

The rest of the vacation, strangely enough, had managed to avoid any more disasters or drama of the Derek-Venture-making. They had eaten an ungodly amount of fudge from a small shop down the road, visited a few forts and the rest of the family had even allowed Casey to drag them around the island according to a detailed plan she had made over breakfast their first morning there.

Waking Derek up at dawn by jumping up and down on the bed with Marti till he had rolled onto the floor and declared them both crazy had just been an added bonus. Even the heavy storm that had rolled in their last night had held off long enough to allow them to make it back to the safety of their hotel rooms.

"Smerek, I'm _scared_," Marti cried, huddled between the two elder teens as they dug through the assortment of snacks they had raided from the vending machine on their floor. It had seemed like a more favorable option than of venturing out in the weather for a late night dinner.

"It's okay, Marti. The storm isn't so bad," Casey insisted, slapping Derek's hand away as he attempted to hand her a pixie stick. "What are you thinking? We have to get her to bed in a few minutes. Sugar is the last thing she needs right now."

"Case, it's a _vacation_. The world won't end if she misses her bedtime," Derek cooed, slipping the candy defiantly into his sister's hand.

"D, we have to get up early to reload the car and leave for home. We _all_ need the sleep. Here Marti, why don't you try this yummy cracker," Casey continued, failing at her attempt to bribe the sugar stick away from the young child. Casey was on the verge of giving up any hope of sleeping when a loud crack of thunder shook the hotel and Marti screamed loudly before diving under the covers.

"I want my daddy!" she cried, her words muffled through the thick fabric of the sheets.

"I should probably take her next door," Derek relented and Casey nodded in agreement. Without further discussion, Derek managed to retrieve Marti from her hiding place under the sheets and carried her out of the room.

"This is just great," Casey moaned, falling over on the bed and burying her face into a pillow. As far as she could tell, Marti had been the buffer that made rooming with Derek bearable over the past few days. _Now I'm stuck here, alone, with him._

Acting quickly, Casey scooped up the candy littering the bed and dumped it onto the desk across the room. She managed to switch off the television as she hastily pulled on her pajamas without tripping over any Derek's bags and hit the lights with a smile on her face. By the time Derek returned to the room, Casey was cozily laying under the covers.

"Tell me you're not already sleeping?" Derek complained. "Even you are not that lame."

"I told you, we need sleep. Big drive and all tomorrow," Casey persisted, burying her face deeper into the pillow. With a reluctant sigh she heard Derek rummage through his luggage and the clicking of the bathroom door. _This won't be so bad. We're just sleeping. No talking, no uneasy truce, no more potential conflicts. This time tomorrow I'll be home in my own warm bed, no worse for wear._

Her nerves calmed and she slipped easily into sleep before Derek even climbed into bed with her.

For a few hours at least.

The storm had continued to rage outside, growing stronger as it hit land. It was the thunder that woke her at three in the morning, once again shaking the hotel with it's force. Startled, Casey shot up in bed with a loud gasp, her heart pounded in her chest. She was about to settle back when she realized she was alone.

As her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room she saw the door to their small balcony was open. The curtains blew in the wind coming off the lake, creating an eerie image that reminded Casey of the murder mysteries she used to watch on late night television. A crack of lightening lit up the sky enough for Casey to make out the silhouette of Derek outside.

"Derek," Casey exclaimed quietly to herself as she slipped out of bed and began to approach him. The idea of locking him out there for the rest of the night flirted across her mind but she quickly shook it away. Doing that would most likely result in the truce becoming null and void and she would find herself stranded at a creepy rest stop somewhere on the way home. It was a risk she was not willing to take.

The smell of the lake and surrounding storm mixed with cigarette smoke greeted her as slid outside onto the balcony next to Derek.

"I thought that you quit," Casey mused, eyes fixed on the heavy rainfall in front of her. She could see the lights of the bridge in the distance. _The storm really is beautiful, all things considered._

"Who told you that?" Derek asked with a faint hint of amusement, turning to face her as he exhaled a breathe of smoke.

"Megan, I think. She was the blonde around Christmas, right?" Casey answered.

"Yeah, well I told Megan plenty of things that weren't true," he explained as he brought his cigarette back to his smirking lips.

"You do realize that you're a pig, right?" Casey declared, finally turning to face him.

"Like you never lied to Sam," Derek challenged, leaning forward. "Tell me, how many times did you tell that poor boy you loved him after you stopped meaning it?"

Casey felt her cheeks redden, anger washing over her body. One of the main aspects of 'the truce' was the unspoken agreement that there were to be no discussions about their romantic relationships. At least nothing that went past a few superficial comments.

There had only been one previous slip where this clause had been involved, unexpectedly on Casey's end. It had resulted in the two not speaking for more than a week after Casey had confessed to Derek about sleeping with Sam that previous January.

Casey preferred _not_ to think about the implications of that to deeply.

"Can I have a cigarette?" Casey inquired, holding out her hand expectantly.

"Nice try but you don't smoke," Derek laughed, sliding his pack of cigarettes down the railing away from her.

"You don't know _anything_ about me," she insisted, trying to reach over his arms for the pack.

"Please, Casey. I know _everything_ about you. You get good grades because you feel like it's the one thing in your life that you can really have complete control over. You like everything to stay the same because you find an unnatural amount of comfort in consistency. And, most importantly, you stayed with Sam because he was safe regardless of how lame the sex must have been," Derek informed, throwing the stub of his cigarette out over the railing before retrieving another one. "And you never loved him. You just wanted to."

Casey was left speechless for several seconds, internally flinching at Derek's brutally honest words. They left her on edge.

"It's not like I don't know you to," she finally responded after trying her best to regain her composure. She just wished her words had come out as strong as she had hoped they would. _How does he do this to me? It's entirely unfairly that he has the power to be this…obtrusive._

"Oh yeah?" he smirked back.

"Yeah. You're scared to let anyone get close to you. That's why you jump from one girl to the next because if you leave first than that eliminates the chance that you get hurt. You put up such a fight against my family when we first moved in because otherwise we might have broken down those thick walls you had spend years building. And the only thing you will ever truly love is hockey because that can't break your heart," she snapped, the words flowing out of her mouth before she had the ability to stop them.

"You think?" Derek questioned, his eyes growing cold as they locked with hers.

"God, will you just give me a damn cigarette?" Casey snapped, attempting to lunge past him. Derek responded quicker then she expected, throwing the rest of his cigarette over the balcony before capturing her wrists in his hand. The movement was far more fluid than it had any right to be and it immediately brought Casey back to their earlier days, before 'the truce' and the complications it had brought them.

The familiarity of the anger Derek could so easily provoke washed over her and it almost scared her how much she had _missed_ it.

"Now Case, play nice," he whispered as he pulled her body flush to his to better rotate them, pressing Casey's body between him and the sliding door. She could feel the cold from the glass against her back through the thin material of pajamas and a violent shiver rushed down her spine.

"I hate you," she growled, trying to pull away from him as he pinned her arms above her head and leaned in towards her.

"Not as much as I hate you," he shot back, pressing his body even tighter up against her to prevent her from escaping. It was at that moment that reality began to slip back to Casey. Their breathing had become labored during the argument, her heart was thundering in her chest and his face was only inches away from her.

_I need to get away, right now,_ Casey thought to herself as she roughly pushed Derek away from her and rushed back into their hotel room. She had been wrong to even consider wanting the fighting back. _No good could ever come from this. _

All she wanted was to crawl back into the warm bed, fall asleep and forget that this ever happened in the morning. It would be another clause added to 'the truce', another thing they never spoke of. Casey was halfway across the room when she felt Derek's arms wrap tightly around her waist as he pulled her back to him. She involuntarily let a small gasp as her back collided with his chest.

"You do not walk away from me," Derek hissed into her ear, his breathe hot against her skin.

"You can't always get what you want," she challenged, tilting her back to lock eyes with him.

"Do not tempt me," Derek warned, tightening his grip.

"Poor baby," she pouted. Before she had the chance to say anything else Derek had spun her around in his arms and pushed her down onto the mattress. "Derek, what the fuck is your problem?!" she demanded, sitting up as Derek leaned down over her.

She never got his answer, the next thing she knew he was kissing her. His lips were rough and hot against her own as he pressed her back down onto the mattress. _This is not happening. There is no fucking way that this is happening_, Casey thought to herself as she her body remained frozen. _This is wrong on so many levels that it just can't…_

All coherent thoughts left her mind then, as Derek's hand slipped under her white tank top and his thumb roughly stroked her nipple. She parted her lips to gasp loudly at the sensation and Derek took full advantaged of the opportunity by slipping his tongue into her mouth. Casey hooked her leg around his waist as her arms wrapped his neck to pull his body even tighter against hers, her body responding to his touch on it's own accord.

She found herself tugging at his shirt in a frustrating quest to remove it. Derek broke away from her long enough to tear it off and throw it over the side of the bed. Casey's tank top quickly joined it before Derek crashed down on top of her again, the feeling of skin against skin causing her breathing to become even more labored. His lips trailed down her neck before settling on her collar bone as Casey stroked his back, her nails digging into his skin when she felt his tongue fluttered out to lick her tender skin.

"You're going to leave a mark," he hissed, looking up at her. Before Casey had a chance to respond the sound of loud knocking on their hotel room brought the outside world crashing back down around them.

_Fuck._


End file.
